<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Doxa/Episteme by Nemainofthewater</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22664299">Doxa/Episteme</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater'>Nemainofthewater</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Chocobox 2020, Extra Treat, Female Friendship, Gen, Premonitions, allusions to character deaths</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:49:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>607</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22664299</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Belief/Knowledge</p><p>In the early days of the siege of Ilium, Cassandra and Helen meet.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Helen of Troy &amp; Cassandra (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Doxa/Episteme</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThebanSacredBand/gifts">ThebanSacredBand</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She finds her staring over the parapets of Ilium. The sun is setting and its golden rays gild Helen’s face until she is become little more than a statue in human form. Her eyes are despairing as she gazes at the forest of masts peeking out from the horizon and almost obscured by the sun’s bright glow. There are soldiers making camp on the shore, scurrying to and fro with rigid precision, ants constructing a new anthill to reclaim their lost queen.</p><p>From behind her pillar, Cassandra watches Helen watch the army. There’s a glint, and in the moment before Helen turns her face, she can see the molten fire of tears pouring down her cheeks.</p><p>Before long the sun slides beneath the horizon, Apollo leaves to seek his rest, and there is nothing left but the last, lingering strokes of red, littering the sky. The figure finally turns away and she is just Helen once again. Luminously beautiful but no longer glowing with divinity.</p><p>“Cassandra,” she greets, her melodious voice low and soft filled with something that Cassandra doesn’t want to identify but can’t help but know. Grief.</p><p>“I hope that you’re feeling better?”</p><p>Cassandra tries to smile, the sides of her mouth raising in its best approximation. It fits her ill, he face more used to its familiar lines of grief and sadness. Hector is the only reason it hasn’t atrophied and wasted away altogether, and it is taking all of her strength to keep staring at the reason that her beloved brother will be killed and his body dragged through the dirt and the filth of the battlefield, desecrated before gods and men. Little wonder she had screamed upon first seeing Helen! Little wonder she had spent the next two days alternating between shivering in her brother’s warm embrace and screaming as a grinning death mask replaces his features.</p><p>“I- was ill,” she says, the words clumsy in her throat. “I want to apologise. To you.”</p><p>Helen gives her own smile then, and in a flash of insight Cassandra knows that it is nought but a mirror to her own poor grin, only ground down and polished to a silver sheen. She shivers. She doesn’t want to know what that smile has been used for, will be used for-</p><p>
  <em>-a sword bearing down-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-fine linen, dropping-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-a smile-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-the cage, the cage, the cage once again -</em>
</p><p>Cassandra draws in a deep breath. “I had thought to show you around-” she continues valiantly, ignoring the spectre of Menelaus caressing Helen’s cheek, “-but I suppose that my brother has already done so.”</p><p>“He has,” Helen says, making no move to come closer. “But I admit he concentrated more on the training yard and the music hall, leaving me to find my own way through the halls and rooms.” She laughs, and it is a bright, studied thing. “I have still had no luck finding the laconia- or at least one where people don’t stare at me all the time! I daresay they will stop once I become a more familiar sight, but until then I would welcome a guide. Or a friend.”</p><p>Cassandra swallows. This woman in front of her is- she is going to bring the ruin of all Cassandra loves. But she is also so desperately lonely.</p><p>“They stare at me too,” she says. “But I know somewhere we can go.”</p><p>She hesitates for just one moment, and then she reaches over, through the spectre of Menelaus and takes Helen’s hand in hers. It is soft and smooth and lovely and above all it is warm. It is solid. It is present.</p><p>“Follow me.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am on Tumblr as <a href="https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com">Nemainofthewater </a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>